Book Reviews: What’s your philosophy?

Publishing books on Amazon has gotten me thinking (along with doing some ARCing around for others).

It’s crazy how a book dipping below 4.0 on Amazon on Goodreads feels like a death sentence. Although, that may be a bit of an exaggeration I’m sure it doesn’t help. Going off personal experience—in which I think I’m probably more of the generous readers—people automatically disqualify books under 4.0. The rating looks plain ugly. When you dip below 3.8 on Amazon and it rounds down to that 3 and a half star display—oh man, the pain!

This has led to a small difference in how I review now. If it is an indie authors book, I will almost always give a 5. 4s are possible but I won’t go below that. I won’t review it otherwise. A 3 is solid, but that is not how other people will see it. On Goodreads where some of the cruelest of people reside (almost seemingly destroying books for sport), I will give any rating if I finish the book, but only if it’s like Harry Potter. Again for an Indie, I probably won’t rate it if it’s not at least a 4. Even then, I will make my review as constructive and positive as possible. I hold a 3.70 rating average on Goodreads, which is probably on the lower side. And that’s with me only giving 4 books below a 3. The majority get 3s (which is “I liked it”). But why is it that if a book has a 3 average, 90 percent of people would skip it?

My first fantasy book, The Last Whisperer, has only 7 percent of its ratings as 1 or 2 stars. That sounds solid, right? If you framed it to me like that, I’d be thrilled. The rest—26 percent for 5 stars, 41 percent for 4 stars, 26 percent for 3 stars—still looks good. But when I frame it as a 3.7 out of 5 with the dreaded 3 and a half star icon, it looks gross.

What do you think? How do you rate books?

My solution is to write another book and give the readers no choice but to 5 star it. 😂

Post navigation

12 thoughts on “Book Reviews: What’s your philosophy?”

I find a 3 rating to be, “Read if you’re a fan of the genre.” A 4 is “Read it regardless of genre but you’ll get an extra kick if you love the genre.” A 5 is “Everyone should read it because it’s life changing.” I try not to give out 5s unless people completely deserve it, and I try not to go lower than 3 unless the book is just a mess (but I do the criticism constructively, not just bashing the book).

I will give out 3s, 2s, 1s, but haven’t come across a book that low in a while.

I know the death sentence it gives small time authors if they get low reviews. A lot of the time, I start at 3 stars and work my way up if I’m looking for a new book to read.

That makes sense. When I get to the Goodreads page of a book I’m thinking of reading and it’s below 4, I’ll scroll down and see why. I think ultimately the words on why people rated it that way are helpful.

I usually don’t consider books with a rating of 3 point something terrible. Let us say a book is super popular, like Divergent or the Hunger Games. Many people love it, yet many people hate it. Let us not forget about the Meh’s as well. I will read the book, and make my own opinion about it.

And for my rating technique, I usually give 3,4, and 5 stars. But, I still have a few 2’s and 1’s. They are rare, but they exist.

Once I started publishing myself and I realized that putting a book below a 4.0 automatically disqualified the author from a lot of opportunities and basically killed the book if it was an indie, I also stopped giving ratings below a 4 to indie books. If I really don’t like a book, I don’t leave a review, because I do not need that kind of bad karma in my life.

When I look at books myself a rating below 4.0 doesn’t automatically disqualify them for me personally, and I note that a lot of good books tend to have ratings around the 3.5-3.9 range, but so many promo sites require a 4.0 star rating, and since that’s a major way for indies to gain exposure, I don’t want to ruin that for them because of my personal feelings about the book. I consider star ratings to be pretty bogus anyway, so I focus more on the text of the review.

When I review a book if I really like it I give it a 5, if it was good I give it a 4, which I rarely do.. I actually don’t remember if I have given a book a 3 and I have never given a 2 or a 1.. I really irks me that some idiots downgrade a book for cliffhangers.. If they don’t like them then don’t read them the blurb usually says the book has a cliffhanger.. I personally don’t like cliffhangers and will usually wait until the series is done to read them…
I Actually rarely look at the ratings or the reviews when choosing a book to read.. I choose books by the cover and or the blurb..

What Is This?

The Eternity Acts is a serial web-novel that focuses on the aftermath of the Acts of King Rayon. All works on this WordPress will take place in this universe. The main story will keep to a Wednesday and Saturday posting schedule. I will also post short stories which will be one-offs of various people from the universe.

The Whisperer Rayon cursed his villagers, summoned a Wall of Fire and created a Burning Sea to mold his kingdom into a place he deemed worth living in.

150 years later and the Whisperer Rayon is gone, but his acts remain. Will the villagers, whose curse changes them by night, be able to overcome the acts of this twisted madman to create a society free from his acts? It may take centuries, but a new King, an ex-slave, and the last Whisperer will certainly try...